KDs are designed/developed/inspired/mused/auto-suggested/indigested to make folks think; an especially uncommon experience among Democrats, Republicans, and jingoistic mainline denominationalists who continue to discourage dissent with their ever-threatening thought police.

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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Scratching the Surface of Ezra and Nehemiah

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

@#$%

@#$%

So many people in
our world, nation, and churches seem so determined to damn themselves.

Wherever I look,
I see people who are so negative about everyone and everything, backbiting, bantering,
bickering, bruising, beating, and butchering. Civility has been replaced
with constant crippling criticisms about everyone and everything. People
can't seem to help themselves from damning everyone and everything including
themselves by simple deduction: if
everyone and everything should be...

Even among
Christians who should know better, I see increasing separations, segregations,
and schisms in total defiance of every ethic taught by Jesus about honoring Him
by being reconcilable with others.

Too many churches
are disgraces of dysfunction, division, and damning words, actions, and even
looks.

How dare such
"Christians" and "churches" tell the world and nation how
to get along when they are poster children for not getting along?

The next time I
see someone who has broken fellowship with a church and then parades around
like Sister-Bertha-better-than-you, I'm gonna say, "Even Gandhi would have
smacked you in the head."

Twain was right:
"The church is always trying to get other people to reform. It might
not be a bad idea to reform itself a little by way of example."

Though many like
me are just scratching
the surface of our relationship with Him, we are
praying and laboring to model Someone better for a world, nation, and too many
churches so bent on damning themselves.

Ezra and Nehemiah
come to mind.

Despite the
typical opposition to anything for
God's sake, they pressed ahead to rebuild the house of the Lord and
His family of faith.

Though I remember
someone telling me in seminary that Ezra and Nehemiah were once one book
because the message of both is the same, the messengers were a little
different; so that's why, I guess, most Bibles have one book for each of them.

Ezra and Nehemiah
reflect unity amid diversity.

One message
from/through different messengers; or as Paul explained later, "There are
varieties of gifts, but they are all from the same Spirit. There are
different ways to serve, but they're all directed by the same Lord.'

Ezra was a
"priest and teacher of the law of the True God of heaven." He
was an educated clergyman and expert Bible teacher.

Nehemiah was a
"cupbearer to the king" which means he was a taste-tester to make
sure the king wasn't poisoned.

One had academic
credentials and one did not; proving God can use anyone whenever He wills to
use anyone no matter who, what, where, or why.

But as Grandpa
Kopp counseled, "Don't miss the forest for the trees!"

Ezra and Nehemiah
teamed up to rebuild the house of the Lord and His family of faith.

Specifically,
they worked together to rebuild the Temple and rebuild/renew the faith of God's
people.

Their plan was
simple: worship, extol God's Word as the ultimate authority for faith and
morality, pray, and be counter-culture or distinguishable from the world's ways
as God's people.

They knew God's
house and people cannot be built/renewed apart from worshiping regularly,
staying in His Word, praying a lot more than as only punctuations for meetings,
and acting holy in the streets as well as sanctuaries.

Typically, again,
they had opposition; or as Jesus promised as well as warned, "You will be
hated because you love Me."

Always remember
John's diagnosis detecting darkness: "It is not hard to figure out who are
the children of God and who are the children of the diabolical one. Those
who don't show love for one another do not belong to God."

Similarly, always
remember John's declaration on why faithful folks like Ezra and
Nehemiah prevail sooner or later and definitely in the end: "My
children, you have come from God and have conquered these spirits because the
One who lives within you is greater than the one in this world."

Getting back to
people who seem so determined to damn themselves, I recall how my good friend
Don Hecox distinguishes His from others, "You can't judge a book by its
cover, but you can tell a tree by its fruit."

God's people
build.

That's the big
message of Ezra and Nehemiah: "Whoever is among His people...build the
house of the Lord!"